In the summertime I get to be a stay at home mom with my daughter who is now 20 months old. I love it, but sometimes I struggle to come up with new fun activities to do with her to keep her busy and entertained at home. This activity is one that I came up with when I was thinking about what I could do to use up her leftover rice cereal. You only need rice cereal, water and food coloring.

I used approximately 1/4 cup cereal in each container and about 1/2 cup water. It doesn’t need to be exact. You can play around with the amounts to get different consistencies. I made four containers, each a different color (red, yellow, green and blue). I just made the colors that came in my food coloring bottles and let my daughter mix the colors together in the tub and then talked about the colors we made (purple, orange, brown). You only need one drop of food coloring. A little goes a long way!

The first time I tried this activity I let her play with plastic baby spoons and her hands. In talking with my mom afterward about the activity, she gave me the idea to try a silicone basting brush. I tried that the second time around and my daughter liked it much better than the spoons since it brushed so nicely onto the walls and floor of the tub. I’m sure you could use regular paintbrushes too. Note: We did this in an empty, dry tub. It was nice that if she stood up the tub was dry so she wouldn’t fall.

I appreciate this activity because the “paint” is safe to ingest. I didn’t have any trouble with her eating it, but it felt good to know it was completely non-toxic. You could easily do this activity with babies that could sit up on their own in the tub, I bet all the way up to preschoolers would enjoy it too!

I had my daughter wear her diaper in the tub while we were playing. Once we were done and we rinsed the tub out, then I took her diaper off, filled the tub up and gave her a bath. She did get pretty messy, but she sure had fun! For those of you wondering (I actually wondered too the first time I did it): the food coloring did not stain her skin, nor the walls of my tub. Below is the after picture – good as new!

I would love to hear if you try this activity with your little one and how they like it!

Asha

Hi, my name is Asha. I am 34-years-old and am a nurse by profession. Right now I am battling Breast Cancer. My husband and I have been married for 8 years and together we have a sweet seven-year-old daughter, a fun four-year-old son, and a lovable bunny named Caramel. I enjoy spending time with family, taking photographs, scrapbooking, hunting, fishing, cooking and gardening.

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